Posts Tagged ‘Intero Cool Apps’

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Cool Apps: See Who You May Be Missing on Twitter

By John Thompson | September 16th, 2011 0 Comments

Do you often feel like you only see the same 12 or 15 people on Twitter, and never hear from the ones you really want to hear from – the visionaries you follow who are the whole reason you even read Twitter?

Enter Shuu.sh, a fun prototype app that sifts through your Twitter feed and amplifies tweets from the people who tweet less frequently and scales back those from folks who tweet incessantly.

Why does this matter? Because like any other shiny tool out there, Twitter needs some managing to be used wisely for business so that it doesn’t become just another time suck that returns paltry results. A lot of apps out there can help you use Twitter as a content creator/sharer – which is also important for your business. But, Shuu.sh is different in that it could help you better use Twitter as a content consumer, which is important too. None of us has unlimited hours in the day, and yet it’s more important than ever to know what’s going on in the world, what’s going on in business, and what’s being talked about in real estate.

How does Shuu.sh work? Go to the app’s website, http://shuu.sh and log in using your Twitter credentials. Once you’re in, you’ll be prompted to “flick the switch” to see Shuu.sh at work. You’ll immediately notice that some tweets are now displayed in larger fonts, while others are in near-microscopic fonts. As you scroll over people’s icons, you’ll also see a number, which is their “Shuush level.” The lower the Shuush level, the larger the font. You now have a new lens into your Twitter stream.

Keep in mind that Shuu.sh is a prototype app, which means it’s basically just an idea that’s been worked into a little piece of technology. It could be gone tomorrow, or it could be rolled in with other functionality and launched. Better to check it out sooner than later if you’re curious about who you may be missing on Twitter.

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Cool Apps: Get Through the Day Without Your Phone – Really?

By John Thompson | August 5th, 2011 0 Comments

Android users: You are growing, and like all other real estate business folks on the planet, you too are addicted to your smartphones. That’s why I thought this week’s app could come in handy for you. Forgot your Android phone at home or the office? Don’t turn the car around, or worse, write off your entire day’s productivity just yet.

Try LookMobile, a free Android app that enables you to access certain basic functions on your phone like text messages and contacts so you don’t have to feel totally cut off from the world or go completely out of your way to retrieve it on a busy day.

LookMobile is available for download at the Android Market. One thing to note is that it does require you to log in using your Facebook account, rather than creating a separate account. Some of you may not like this forced connection, but it does mean one less login and password to keep track of. The developer’s website says that this is a verification process to know that you – the person accessing the phone’s data – are in fact the owner of the phone.

Once you’ve downloaded the app and register your phone, you can log in at LookMobileOn.net and access LookMobile’s three main features: text messages, call log, and your contacts.

Text: You can read and reply to all SMS text messages your phone has received.

Call log: You can see all your recent calls as well as the phone number they came from so you can call them back while on hiatus from your actual device for the day.

Contacts: Access your phone’s entire list of contacts.

LookMobile’s features are pretty amazing when you think about the gigantic inconvenience leaving your phone behind can pose for your busy professional life. But, as tech reviewers have already pointed out, there is a privacy consideration before using the app since you essentially are giving the app’s developers access to your phone’s data.

Do the site operators see your messages?

On its FAQ page, the company says no.

Are your messages stored?

The company says no (unless you want them to be stored, which they also say is an upcoming feature).

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Cool Apps: GroupMe Gives You Group Text, Phone Abilities

By John Thompson | July 29th, 2011 0 Comments

In a typical real estate deal, you’re rarely dealing with just one person at a time. You’ve got a couple of buyers or sellers and dozens of other individuals who you need to message a lot – many times in groups or pairings.

Enter GroupMe, an app that enables you to group text, conference call, share online pictures, share locations, and more. You can create groups of up to 25 people – taken from your contacts list or Facebook or Twitter accounts.

How it works: The GroupMe app creates a unique phone number for every group that’s created, and automatically sends that number to every group member. Now you have a private chat room for different groups of people, for instance:

  • Your new buyer clients – husband and wife who are super busy commuters. Instant text chatting with them at the same time is an ideal method of efficient communication.
  • Your new buyers under contract – who are dealing with the drama of getting a home loan – and their loan broker.

You can basically create groups for whatever need you have. Maybe it’s just one for family to get the “what’s for dinner” conversation started. Maybe it’s for the group of parents whose kids go to school with yours. Maybe it’s all your friends who like tribute bands from the ’80s.

GroupMe is available for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry. You can sign up and get more info at GroupMe.com.

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Cool Apps: Never Miss a Crucial Follow-Up with FollowUp.cc

By John Thompson | July 22nd, 2011 2 Comments

Many times in real estate sales, your livelihood depends on the follow-up. How many times have you witnessed a deal that never would’ve closed had you not followed up like an obsessed maniac? That’s just the reality of working with transactions that involve so many hands, and so many signatures.

But why risk missing that crucial follow-up that keeps your transactions moving? Persistence is an extremely powerful tool that makes things happen amazingly for your clients. And now you can trigger those follow-ups with a simple Gmail plug-in called FollowUp.cc.

Sweet, how does it work?

Visit FollowUp.cc’s website and sign up for the plugin. Once it’s all hooked up (really, there’s no wizardry beyond providing your email address, password and agreeing to a few things), the plug-in allows you to add a specific email address to an email’s CC field to determine how long to wait to send a follow-up email to anyone who is copied on the email. How does that work? Well, if you want a follow-up on July 30, you’d create an address jul30@followup.cc. If you wanted a follow-up in one week, you’d create 1w@followup.cc. The app creator provides a complete list of examples here.

FollowUp.cc also integrates with Google calendars and Salesforce for even more follow-up madness.

What’s it cost?

You can sign up for the free option, which allows you to schedule 25 follow-up reminders per month. Paid versions range from $5 per month for 100 reminders to $15 per month for 1,000 reminders.

Don’t use Gmail? Unfortunately, this week’s Cool App only works for Gmail or Google Apps users. Sorry folks. I did write about an alternative app called Boomerang that offers similar functionality back in December. Boomerang works with Gmail or Outlook. Check out that Cool Apps article here.

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Cool Apps: Central.ly Offers a One-page Profile for Your Business

By John Thompson | July 15th, 2011 3 Comments

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just throw together a great looking webpage that acts as an online business card, one-page glossy ad, and sends leads directly to all your online networks? Now you can with Central.ly.

Central.ly is a free online service that’s extremely similar to About.me, except it’s targeting businesses rather than individual profiles. (If you missed About.me, check our review of it here.) It helps you create a one-page business profile that can include a number of third-party apps that link to sites like Facebook, Twitter, Yelp and your own website.

How does it work? Very simply. In fact, if you’ve used About.me, you’ll have no problems as it’s very similar. First, go to the site to register. You can use Central.ly’s native URL or you can use your own domain name.

After securing an account, you’ll then spend just a few minutes filling out your business’ basic information like what it’s called, what you do and how people can find you. Then you can have fun adding a background image to give more of a branding or visual identity.

So, why do you need this? I wouldn’t say you need it, as in your online business will completely die without it. But it does only take a few minutes to do, is kind of fun, and free. And when you’re done, you’ll end up with a nice new visual identity that can be found in search results. Once found, it then plugs into all the sites you want it to. That alone deems it a cool app in my book!

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Intero Cool Apps: Why You Should Resist the Urge to Ignore Google Plus

By John Thompson | July 8th, 2011 0 Comments

By now, you’ve likely heard some buzz around Google’s latest big release called Google Plus. Maybe you’ve already gotten an invite and tested it out. If not, you should. I’m going to talk about why and how this new social network can be useful in your real estate business and go over a few basics of the road.

Why oh why do we need yet another social network?

This of course is the first question that comes to mind anytime someone invites you to a new “Facebook” of sorts. The short answer for why Google Plus is worth your time is this: It’s easy to use, takes seconds to set up and gives you the flexibility you’ve been longing for to segment your professional and personal social networking in a meaningful way.

OK, so how to get an invite if you don’t already have one?

The best way is to simply put the word out on Facebook and Twitter. Let your existing network know that you haven’t gotten an invite yet and are looking for one. Chances are high that someone in your circle has gotten in and can send you an invite.

What’s it all about?

The fundamental difference between Google Plus and the others before it is privacy. Google Plus is based on the Google Circles feature, which enables you to share and view content to and from specifically defined groups of people – and no one else. So if you want to share new listings or local housing news with your group of interested local buyers, then your cousins in Minnesota don’t have to be burdened with your irrelevant posts. Likewise, your professional contacts won’t have to see the pics from your summer family reunion.

How is this any different from Facebook’s list feature? Very very different. First, there’s ease of use. Google Circles is simple drag and drop. As soon as you get set up, you start creating your circles and simply sort your contacts into their respective groups. Second, there’s the segmentation of viewing content from these groups. So you’re not getting professional news and marketing tips alongside updates from your family members.

It’s easy to get fatigued by social media and resist the urge to jump on the next big thing that ends up being nothing at all (remember Google Wave?). But Google Plus really shows promise to be the best social web tool of all – especially for those of us who’ve found our personal and professional lives blending, finding it hard to keep up with all the content we want to keep up with due to this very blending.

Reach out and get your invite and start test-driving Google Plus today!

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Intero Cool Apps: Get the Inside Scoop on Your Clients with Flowtown

By John Thompson | June 24th, 2011 0 Comments

You know those names and addresses that line the pages of your real estate email contact list? Do you know who these people really are? Have any clues about them, what they enjoy in life, where they envision themselves living? Or, when is the last time you did a quick reality check on who you think they are?

Without any information (or the right information) about the folks who receive your marketing messages, your efforts are wasted dollars.

Enter Flowtown. It’s a social media marketing platform that enables you to mine your current email lists and figure out where your contacts are active and engaged online. (Could this be the end of aimless Twitter and Facebook campaigns?)

The web app can help you reach your existing contacts in new ways. You’ll know a bit more about them as you gain information about where they’re engaged in public online networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and Flickr. You can get more detailed data about what they’re into.

The only thing Flowtown needs to work is an existing contact list, which hopefully you’ve been cultivating since the day you set foot into the real estate field.

OK, how does this thing work?

1.     Go to Flowtown’s website to get started.

2.     Once you’re in, hook up your contact email list.

3.     Watch as the app prepares an information sheet with data about your clients (based on their public social network activities).

4.     Mine that data for all sorts of useful information like which social networks they use most, which clients have large followings online, their occupations, interests, etc.

5.     Start thinking of how you can better target your marketing to fit your real customers.

Real estate choices are about lifestyle. It’s amazing the kinds of clues you can get about a person’s approach to lifestyle just by analyzing what they’re doing publicly online. (I stress the word “publicly” because this activity could have a Big Brother feel to it, but no one’s privacy is being compromised here because the app is using information gleaned from public sites.)

Once you know more about your clients – past, present and future – you’ll be able to craft stellar marketing messages that really speak to them, not just out-of-the-box real estate marketing that every agent in town is using.

This sounds wonderful, right? But alas … there is a catch. Flowtown is still in early stages and accepting new users only by invite. So to use the service, you have to sign up to be on the invite list and invite a few friends and colleagues along with you.

Bummer, I know. There’s a tad bit of waiting involved.

But cruise on over to the website and get your name in there to test drive this thing. You may be surprised by the results!

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Cool Apps: Social Mention

By John Thompson | April 22nd, 2011 0 Comments

It’s Friday afternoon. Your phone is slow. Email is caught up. Contracts and deals have all been taken care of. Do you know what people are saying about your real estate brand online?

No? Well, now you can with a service called Social Mention.

One of the best uses of social media for business to date has been the ability to put your ear to the ground and really listen in on what people are saying about your service and your brand. Are you listening so far or just talking?

Social Mention is a real-time search engine that crawls through user-generated content from Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, YouTube, Digg, Google, and others. It monitors more than 80 social media outlets, enabling you to track and measure what people are saying about you, your service and your brand.

How it works: Go to SocialMention.com and enter a search term or phrase (try your name or Intero Real Estate to start). You’ll see a list of most recent content showing your term or phrase. And you’ll also notice the left sidebar of the screen shows some measurements for strength, sentiment, passion and reach.

Strength measures the likelihood that your brand (or name or service) is being discussed in social media. Social Mention calculates this based on number of mentions within the last 24 hours divided by total possible mentions.

Sentiment measures the ratio of positive mentions to negative ones.

Passion measures the likelihood that those talking about your brand will talk about it repeatedly.

Reach measures your range of influence – the number of unique persons mentioning your brand divided by the total number of mentions.

Why does all of this matter? Consumer insight, for one. What’s more valuable than getting an inside view into conversations about your business?

The second big use in real estate for this service is direction for your social media efforts. Gaining insight into how people might already be engaging with your brand or service online can help you target your social media marketing.

Give it a try. You won’t even have to download anything this time!

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Cool Apps: Master Your Square Footage Needs

By John Thompson | April 15th, 2011 0 Comments

Square footage is a key aspect of homes and properties – and often it’s either inaccurate or not noted at all in an MLS description when you’re talking about individual rooms and outdoor spaces.

As a Realtor, I’m sure you’ve found yourself reaching for the tape measure with clients on more than one occasion.

Now, if you have the right app, you can just reach for your phone. I recently discovered an Android app called Square Footage Master that can help finesse the square footage question. You can use the app with or without an actual tape measure or laser ruler.

Here’s how it works:

Camera Ruler
The app comes with a camera ruler, but to use it you’ll need to set it up by measuring two values first. Have someone help you capture these two distances with a tape measure or ruler:

Camera height: Hold the camera at eye level and measure the distance between it and the floor.

Camera-to-wall distance: Hold the camera as if taking a picture while standing with your back against the wall. Measure the distance between the camera and the wall behind you.

Once you get these two measurements, you can input them in the Settings menu from the app’s home page.

Body Ruler
It’s a good idea to also take the time to measure your different body dimensions. If the app knows that your foot is 8 inches from heel to toe tip, then you can use your feet to get a wall measurement.

Square Footage Master is pretty robust in the way it can save your data. You file measurements by rooms and rooms into a house.

The app costs $2.99 and is available at the Android Market.

It requires work (with the calibrating) to get it running right, but it ranks high as an app that you have a real-life use for once you learn how to use it. The developer, Ying Wen Technologies, has a great online tutorial with screenshots that will give you a detailed view of all that the app can do.

Give it a try and maybe next time you can leave the tape measure at home.

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Intero Cool Apps: Business Contacts, Rock-Star Style

By John Thompson | March 18th, 2011 0 Comments

Being busy is good, but it can quickly go awry as all other things in your life get tossed aside. Two of the first physical pieces of evidence here are business cards and business receipts. Who among us hasn’t simply tossed these items into a jacket or pants pocket, laptop bag or backseat? Then they become lost at sea.

Now with new services like CardMunch you can nip this behavior in the bud and become the world’s most organized Realtor when it comes to managing contacts. You’ll be the envy of all your peers. How does she manage to have so many contacts all at her fingertips?

CardMunch was recently acquired by LinkedIn, which makes it even more interesting. One can only assume there could be more synergies between the two applications down the road.

In fact, the first cool feature to come out of the acquisition is that CardMunch is now free!

CardMunch is a mobile app that works only with iPhone right now. (Sorry Android and Blackberry users!)

How it works:  You download the app from the iTunes store, then snap photos of business cards using your phone’s camera. The images are then reviewed and transcribed by actual humans (I know, right?), and the information is sent back to your phone and stored as contacts within minutes.

Amazing.

Some other cool features of this app include:

  • A rolodex-style way of flipping through your new business contacts.
  • One-tap LinkedIn invites: After a new business contact comes back to your phone via CardMunch, you have the option to click one button to request your connection to them on LinkedIn.
  • You get to choose which address book you want to store your contacts in:  the one native to your iPhone, the one provided with the CardMunch app, or both.
  • Back up: CardMunch synchs all your contact data to your account. What a lifesaver that could be should you happen to lose your phone before you’ve had a chance to synch new data.

Give it a test drive if you’re an iPhone user. If you’re on Android, you could give CamCard a try (though it’s not free). I would hang on though, as the app market moves pretty fast and I can’t imagine CardMunch is not already developing apps for other devices.

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